From Granta magazine 2006
North by Northwest isn’t a film about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America. The title sequence in which the stark lines of a Madison Avenue office building are ‘woven’ together could be the construction of Cary in his suit right there – he gets knitted into his suit, into his job, before our very eyes. Indeed some of the popular ‘suitings’ of that time (‘windowpane’ or ‘glen plaid’) perfectly complemented office building. Cary’s suit reflects New York, identifies him as a thrusting exec, but also arms him, protects him: what else is a suit for?...
The recent idiom of calling a guy a ‘suit’ if you don’t like him, consider him a flunky or a waste of space, applies to Cary at the beginning of the film: this suit comes barrelling out of the elevator, yammering business trivialities a mile a minute, almost with the energy of the entire building. The suit… [is] a real beauty, a perfectly tailored, gracefully falling lightweight dusty blue… It’s by far the best suit in the movie, in the movies, perhaps the whole world.
observations: Two happy chances led to this entry. When I featured Todd McEwen’s Five Simple Machines recently, with a picture of Killer Barbie, his publisher Charles Boyle at CB Editions told me about this essay, published in a Granta travel writing edition a few years ago. I absolutely loved the essay, and then while looking for a film still, came upon the completely amazing Clothes on Film website, which I strongly recommend anyone with the slightest interest in clothes or films should visit immediately. It’s possible I’m prejudiced in its favour, this being a subject so close to my own, and to my heart - but no, I think anyone would enjoy a turn around this site.
Meanwhile, McEwen’s piece is hilarious, but strangely convincing – it’s as good a way of studying a film as any. Later on, after the famous crop-dusting scene, he says:
And he continues to track the clothes in the film - Mount Rushmore seems ‘a very formal national park, there were a lot of people dressed up in the cafeteria’.
Links on the blog: Todd McEwen here. In Strangers on a Train (1950), a character chooses a glen plaid suit, as mentioned above, and for the entry there is a fine illo featuring a young and handsome Frank Sinatra, a man nearly as stylish as Cary Grant.
The two stills from North by Northwest are, of course, from Clothes on Film – their article on this film is well worth reading in parallel with the McEwen.
North by Northwest isn’t a film about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America. The title sequence in which the stark lines of a Madison Avenue office building are ‘woven’ together could be the construction of Cary in his suit right there – he gets knitted into his suit, into his job, before our very eyes. Indeed some of the popular ‘suitings’ of that time (‘windowpane’ or ‘glen plaid’) perfectly complemented office building. Cary’s suit reflects New York, identifies him as a thrusting exec, but also arms him, protects him: what else is a suit for?...
The recent idiom of calling a guy a ‘suit’ if you don’t like him, consider him a flunky or a waste of space, applies to Cary at the beginning of the film: this suit comes barrelling out of the elevator, yammering business trivialities a mile a minute, almost with the energy of the entire building. The suit… [is] a real beauty, a perfectly tailored, gracefully falling lightweight dusty blue… It’s by far the best suit in the movie, in the movies, perhaps the whole world.
observations: Two happy chances led to this entry. When I featured Todd McEwen’s Five Simple Machines recently, with a picture of Killer Barbie, his publisher Charles Boyle at CB Editions told me about this essay, published in a Granta travel writing edition a few years ago. I absolutely loved the essay, and then while looking for a film still, came upon the completely amazing Clothes on Film website, which I strongly recommend anyone with the slightest interest in clothes or films should visit immediately. It’s possible I’m prejudiced in its favour, this being a subject so close to my own, and to my heart - but no, I think anyone would enjoy a turn around this site.
Meanwhile, McEwen’s piece is hilarious, but strangely convincing – it’s as good a way of studying a film as any. Later on, after the famous crop-dusting scene, he says:
[Grant] looks like he’s been teaching school all afternoon… his tie is still pressed and the shirt is white, even the collar and cuffs. You cannot violate the white shirt of the Sixties. You might kill me but you will never kill this shirt.
And he continues to track the clothes in the film - Mount Rushmore seems ‘a very formal national park, there were a lot of people dressed up in the cafeteria’.
Links on the blog: Todd McEwen here. In Strangers on a Train (1950), a character chooses a glen plaid suit, as mentioned above, and for the entry there is a fine illo featuring a young and handsome Frank Sinatra, a man nearly as stylish as Cary Grant.
The two stills from North by Northwest are, of course, from Clothes on Film – their article on this film is well worth reading in parallel with the McEwen.
Moira - Oh, I must visit that website! It sounds like a great look at the important visual impact of clothes. And it's interesting how McEwan makes Grant's suit so metaphorical. I'd never thought about it that way before 'though I've seen the film. This is a really fascinating take on North by Northwest. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI thought the essay was very clever, because it was hilariously funny, but the points he was making were valid, and imaginative, and made sense. I heard somewhere that the author is going to write more about films, and I'll certainly be looking out for that.
DeletePauline Kael said something similar about the suit in her essay on Cary Grant. (I only know that because I happened to have seen that essay by chance a couple of days ago.)
ReplyDeleteOh that's interesting. Look at it again and share some details!
DeleteFound it! She says:
DeleteIn "North by Northwest," the lean-fitting suit he wore through so many perils seemed the skin of his character;
And she also points out in (a very long essay)that in His Girl Friday - my favourite comedy of all time - CG's real name makes an appearance:
As the editor in "His Girl Friday," when Grant is threatened with prison by the mayor and the sheriff, he yammers out, "The last man to say that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat."
Oh how interesting. Makes me want to think about film costumes more. And Cary Grant - what an interesting character, I always wonder what he was really like. I think Hitchcock said he wasn't nice at all...
DeleteThis essay will be included in Todd McEwen's forthcoming book of essays, How Not to be American, to be published later this year by Aurum Press, London.
ReplyDeleteThanks - I'm most certainly in line for that.
DeleteYou are introducing me to so many new things today. Don't know much about Todd McEwen either. Cary Grant is a favorite actor, along with James Cagney, and North by Northwest is a movie we watch over and over.
ReplyDeleteYes I love Cary Grant too, this film and His Girl Friday particularly. But plenty of others too. And James Cagney did some great ones too.
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